Documentary imagination: The disappeared, the clue and the photograph

The article discusses the ways in which photographs are approached and framed in the Finnish documentary film Kaksi enoa/Two Uncles (1991) by Kanerva Cederström. The documentary’s point of departure is a photograph of the film-maker’s uncle who went missing in World War II. With the photograph, the documentary invites the viewer into the mystery surrounding the disappearance. The article follows the different positions given to the photograph over the course of the film and argues for the documentary’s capacity to imagine in the face of the wartime loss that beset the film-maker’s family.